What type of accent does James have?

GullWing

GullWing

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I did a search on this and didn't find anything, so my apologies if it's been discussed...

But I was wondering about James's accent.
I know he's from the north somewhere, but sometimes I hear a bit of Prince Charles in there - particularly with words like "about" or "around".

Is this geographical or manufactured?
I approve, whatever it is... :D
 
GullWing said:
But I was wondering about James's accent.
I know he's from the north somewhere[...]
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He?s from Bristol wich is South West England ...

As for the Accent ... wiki has this to say about the dialect there ... I haven?t got the slightest clue about linguistics ...
wikipedia said:
A dialect of English is spoken by some Bristol inhabitants, known colloquially as Bristolian, or even more colloquially as "Bristle" or "Brizzle". Bristol is the only large English city with a rhotic accent, in which the r in words like car is pronounced. The unusual feature of this dialect, unique to Bristol, is the Bristol L (or terminal L), in which an L sound is appended to words that end in an 'a' or 'o'.[42] Thus "area" becomes "areal", etc. This is believed to be how the city's name evolved from Brycgstow to have a final 'L' sound: Bristol. Further Bristolian linguistic features are the addition of a superfluous "to" in questions relating to direction or orientation (a feature also common to the coastal towns of South Wales), or using "to" instead of "at"; and using male pronouns "he", "him" instead of "it". For example, "Where's that?" would be phrased as "Where's he to?", a structure exported to Newfoundland English.[43]
[...]
Stanley Ellis, a dialect researcher, found that many of the dialect words in the Filton area were linked to work in the aerospace industry. He described this as "a cranky, crazy, crab-apple tree of language and with the sharpest, juiciest flavour that I've heard for a long time".
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_May#Personal_life

His accent doesn't strike me as being particular to any region, just generally well spoken, maybe a bit of schooling to be more RP ("Prince Charles" as you say :D) before joining the BBC (not that that matters any more). According to wikipedia he moved around a bit including Bristol, South Wales and South Yorkshire which all have strong regional accents so there will be hints of all of them in areas of his speech.

Clarkson is the true northern boy but he went to Repton so would have had any Yorkshire accent beaten out of him there.
 
alihaig said:
Clarkson is the true northern boy but he went to Repton so would have had any Yorkshire accent beaten out of him there.
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I loved listening to Jeremy and Parkinson doing their Yorkshire thing on the SIARPC segment.

I think Jeremy has quite a facility for accents.
I've heard him do a terrific Australian as well.
And his totally funny, "Mornin'..." on the recent US road trip. (12x2):lol:
 
efoolution said:
He?s from Bristol wich is South West England ...

As for the Accent ... wiki has this to say about the dialect there ... I haven?t got the slightest clue about linguistics ...

[wikipedia quote]
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Ahh, so that's where the Ls and Rs at the end of words is from, Bristol.

nbc_the_more_you_know.jpg
 
The funny thing is a lot of people pick up on the way James pronounces words like "was" and "because" and say that sounds Bristolian and it really doesn't! Bristolian "was" is "wuz" and James's is more like "waz" with a slightly longer 'a' sound. I'd love to know where that bit comes from. He's a bit like Mrs Doubtfire in that his accent comes from "here and there" :)

I don't have a very strong Bristol accent, but recently I met someone who spoke Bristolian dialect (or 'Proper Brizzel', as it's known). Within minutes we were chatting away and no one else could understand a word. As in all areas, the accent and the dialect are two very different things and although my speech is usually quite close to RP, it was lovely to get away from that and engage an entirely different set of rules!

I'm surprised people don't hear the Yorkshire in Jeremy's accent. It is subtle, I'll grant you, but it's definitely there. His accent is very similar to a friend of mine's. She was born in Doncaster and grew up in York. Some of the accents from that part of the country are not at all what people expect them to be!
 
alihaig said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_May#Personal_life

His accent doesn't strike me as being particular to any region, just generally well spoken, maybe a bit of schooling to be more RP ("Prince Charles" as you say :D) before joining the BBC (not that that matters any more).
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Funny you should mention that--I was watching Season 2 recently, and I noticed something funny in the challenge to break the speed record for a car towing a caravan. I figure this must be the first film he made after joining Top Gear again, because he forces an odd, proper BBC accent, like Jeremy said "like he was holding a grape in his buttocks". That's the only instant where I've heard him talk like that though.
 
But i can say the same for me. I can not tell any of the explicit British accents apart. (Just that one guest where i didn't understand anything... i noticed that he must be from someplace somewhere...) It just strikes me as British. I also will recognize American or Australian directly, but i didn't even notice that Jeremy and James have a different accent.
Whats with Hammond? Does he have one?
 
Hammond has the vestiges of a Birmingham/Midlands accent. Again it isn't very pronounced. I probably notice it more because I used to live there (I've moved around a bit).

Again, as with the stereotypical "Yorkshire" accent, the stereotypical "Brummie" accent is actually more akin to that of the Black Country, a neighbouring part of the Midlands, so people might not recognise it immediately.

And even more oddly, Black Country and Bristol dialects have a great deal in common even though the accents are very different!
 
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All of them are - as far as I know- from reasonably well off backgrounds, which is partly why the regional accents they have are not as pronounced as the stereotype
 
Wyvern said:
Hammond has the vestiges of a Birmingham/Midlands accent. Again it isn't very pronounced. I probably notice it more because I used to live there (I've moved around a bit).

Again, as with the stereotypical "Yorkshire" accent, the stereotypical "Brummie" accent is actually more akin to that of the Black Country, a neighbouring part of the Midlands, so people might not recognise it immediately.

And even more oddly, Black Country and Bristol dialects have a great deal in common even though the accents are very similar!
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I always think Hammond has a bit of residual northerner in there too - there are a couple of bits that have residual Birmingham (like I think the way he says four-b'-fours instead of four-by-fours, has anyone else noticed this?), and I spot a few bits that sound like residual Yorkshire too - he went to art college in Harrogate and lived all round up there for years, so he's picked it up a bit too.

You can spot it in Jeremy on some words too, he does the Yorkshire thing of pronouncing it 'Yorksher' when an RP pronunciation would be closer to 'Yorksheer'.

And back to James, I've spotted residual Yorkshire in him too - like the way he pronounces 'nearly' as 'nerly' rather than 'neerly'. I think there might be a bit o' Brizzle in there too, but I'm not so familiar with the accent and I probably wouldn't pick up on it myself.

In conclusion, they are all broadly RP but you can spot regional intonations on some words.

/accent geekery
 
Ramseus said:
Ahh, so that's where the Ls and Rs at the end of words is from, Bristol.
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The silent Rs stuck to the ends of words in brittish english is common in most of it's dialects if I remember correctly. but in bristol it's a silent L instead.
 
salle said:
The silent Rs stuck to the ends of words in brittish english is common in most of it's dialects if I remember correctly. but in bristol it's a silent L instead.
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That's the thing, in Bristolian, they aren't silent. The 'r' sound is very full and rounded and and the 'l' sound is clearly sounded and both get appended to words that end with vowels, for example, "There's a new cinemar in the areal and I 'ad popcorrn and Coker Coler. I bis going again la'er ('t' sounds are often dropped completely). Wur bis thee goin' to?"

Which, in English, is "There's a new cinema in the area and I had popcorn and Coca Cola. I'm going again later. Where are you going?"
 
GullWing said:
I loved listening to Jeremy and Parkinson doing their Yorkshire thing on the SIARPC segment.

I think Jeremy has quite a facility for accents.
I've heard him do a terrific Australian as well.
And his totally funny, "Mornin'..." on the recent US road trip. (12x2):lol:
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Yeah, Jeremy is good at all accents- he did a Maggie Thatcher impersonation in (6x6) that was fairly good too. the "mornin'" thing made me laugh my head off, though.
 
Sm?rg?sbord said:
I always think Hammond has a bit of residual northerner in there too - there are a couple of bits that have residual Birmingham (like I think the way he says four-b'-fours instead of four-by-fours, has anyone else noticed this?), and I spot a few bits that sound like residual Yorkshire too - he went to art college in Harrogate and lived all round up there for years, so he's picked it up a bit too.
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I've noticed the "four-b'-fours" thing.

But then, I'm almost completely hopeless with the varying accents there (except for the stereotypical "British" accent (is that what RP is?) and Cockney), so the three of them sound virtually the same to me, with a few differences here and there.
 
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